The Influence of Internet Interpersonal Communication to Relationship and Loneliness of College Students

Chatting online by instant messaging (IM) is a very popular way of internet interpersonal communication. QQ is the most popular instant messaging for online chatting in China. This research attempts to examine the main factors of emoticons usage and topics discussed in internet interpersonal communication first based on QQ. Then we attempt to examine the influence of internet interpersonal communication based on QQ to relationship and loneliness of college students by using quantitative research method. Results show that the behaviors of internet interpersonal communication based on QQ can not influence the relationship of QQ users directly, but they can influence the relationship by the mediating factors, such as self-disclosure, emoticons of `intimacy and sadness' and topics of `private businesses'. Moreover, behaviors of internet interpersonal communication based on QQ were driven by the motivation of affiliation and interpersonal communication, not the loneliness, and behaviors of internet interpersonal communication based on QQ can contribute to weaken the loneliness.